Cindy Neighbor, Paul Morrison, Mark Parkinson, and now Mr. Mathes have all found that the party they grew up in isn't representing their interests any longer.

"I think what it really comes right down to is personal ambition," Ron Freeman, head of the Kansas Republican Party, said of the candidates leaving the party. Which is a fairly silly thing to say. I'd bet money that Morrison could have won the Republican primary against Phill Kline, and that Mark Parkinson could have signed on with any of the Republican gubernatorial candidates and made them a winner. Neighbor and Mathes have gotten elected before as Republicans, and that's the more powerful party right now. If they were ambitious, they'd have stayed put.

They switched parties because they wanted to run with a party that actually represented their interests.